head to head · open source
Jan vs catai
Jan has 45,409 GitHub stars, 3,145 forks, 521 open issues and last shipped yesterday. catai has 498 stars, 40 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. Jan leads on adoption by 9,018% (45,409 vs 498 stars). Jan is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; catai is written in TypeScript under MIT. Jan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, catai 8%. Jan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (chatgpt, llm), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Jan | catai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 498 |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2025-11-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 40 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Jan if
- You weight community size — 45K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick catai if
- You want the catai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and catai fits your workflow better
About Jan
Jan Open source ChatGPT replacement English · 中文 · 日本語 Getting Started Community Changelog Bug reports Jan is bringing the best of open source AI in an easy to use product. Download and run LLMs with full control and privacy . Installation The easiest way to get started is by downloading one of the following versions for your respective operating system: Platform Download Windows jan.exe macOS jan.dmg Linux (deb) jan.deb Linux (AppImage) jan.AppImage Linux (Arm64) How to Download from jan.ai or GitHub Releases. Features Local AI Models : Download and run LLMs (Llama, Gemma, Qwen, GPT oss etc.) from HuggingFace…
About catai
Catai 🚀 Exciting Updates Coming Soon! New UI , Function Calling , and more amazing features are on the way! Stay tuned for updates. Run GGUF models on your computer with a chat ui. Your own AI assistant runs locally on your computer. Inspired by Node Llama Cpp, Llama.cpp Installation & Use Make sure you have Node.js ( download current ) installed. Features Auto detect programming language 🧑💻 Click on user icon to show original message 💬 Real time text streaming ⏱️ Fast model downloads 🚀 CLI Install command Cross platform You can use it on Windows, Linux and Mac. This package uses node llama cpp which…
read the full catai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jan or catai more popular?
Jan has 45,409 GitHub stars and catai has 498. Jan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jan and catai free?
Both are open source. Jan has no licence declared in this registry, and catai is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Jan and catai?
Jan is written in Rust and catai in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Jan or catai?
Choose Jan if you want the larger community (45,409 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose catai if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.